


Here’s to the Mess We Make

by FakePlasticSnow



Series: Yuri Plisetsky vs. Adulting [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Coming of Age, Confession, Cry Cute, Deconstruction of a Tsundere, Defrosting Ice Queen, Earn Your Happy Ending, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Getting Together, Humor, M/M, One Shot, Post-Finale, Slow Burn, Yuri is 16 and kisses someone eventually, identity crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 17:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9452627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FakePlasticSnow/pseuds/FakePlasticSnow
Summary: “Fuck you. Fuck you for being kind, for seeing me for who I really am, and for looking good in a leather jacket. You ruined everything. I like you.”Puberty sucks. Feelings suck more. In the wake of a post-Worlds meltdown, Yuri accidentally discovers his artistic identity in a jazz dance class with Otabek and Mila. Along the way, Otabek unleashes his inner Channing Tatum, Yuri gets in touch with his inner Georgi, and Yakov probably loses more hair. Welcome to the madness.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to write a simple, fluffy how-they-got-together story, but I fell down the rabbit hole of Yuri’s delightfully complicated headspace and didn’t emerge until two months later with a long-ass character study. Reasons it took me two months to write this: 1) I wanted to explore the how and why of Yuri falling in love, 2) believably getting an anime tsundere to express his feelings in a sorta-healthy way apparently required 12,000 words of character growth and tension buildup, 3) the amount of Googling and YouTubing I did for this was _insane_ and my search history must look super random now.
> 
> I love to nerd out about the writing process (and just squee about YOI in general), so if you have any questions about the meta, process, tropes, theories, or pop culture references involved, feel free to ask me anything!
> 
> **Featured Music:**
> 
>   * [“Gold” – Kiiara](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXv_KEDjktk)
>   * [“The Less I Know the Better” – Tame Impala](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBzrzS1Ag_g)
>   * [“Tessellate” – Ellie Goulding](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geSScmBWBtE)
>   * [“Bloodstream (String Quartet Version)” – Stateless](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HAhQ9_0gkM)
> 


As Yuri stood at the center podium, Lilia’s voice echoed in his head: _Shoulders back. Head high. Chin up. Carry yourself with grace and beauty._ He briefly wondered if there was a manlier way to hold a bouquet of flowers while retaining that “grace and beauty” shit.

Once the cameras stopped rolling, he tore off his skates and ran barefoot towards the locker room. After two frantic attempts at working out the locker combination, he dug out his phone and called the first number on speed dial.

“I did it, Dedushka!”

“I never had a doubt,” his grandfather said. “You always make me so proud, Yurochka.”

Every tear Yuri had held back since winning welled up once he heard Kolya Plisetsky’s warm, raspy voice. After the emotional rollercoaster of the last few days, he wanted nothing more than to curl up around a bag of fresh pirozhki and listen to Dedushka rant about local news and hockey. Yuri crumpled onto the bench, covering his mouth so his grandfather wouldn’t hear the sobs.

“I wish you could’ve been here,” Yuri choked out, curling his fingers around his medal. He watched droplets fall onto the cuts and bruises that covered his feet.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’m eating that garbage rabbit food like the doctor ordered so I can be at your next one.”

He laughed. “Hey, salads can taste good sometimes.”

“Your grandmother used to tell me that all the time. _‘Just give them a chaaance, Kolya.’_ Lies,” Dedushka said fondly. “I’m worried about you, Yura. You were crying after your last skate. Is everything alright?”

He cleared his throat. “I’m fine,” he said, trying to steady his voice. “I was just exhausted, nothing to –” He flinched at the creak of the door swinging open.

It was Otabek. Fuck.

Otabek stood at the doorway with a surprised look on his face. Yuri looked away and held up a hand to hide his face. He heard the door gently close.

Yuri smacked his forehead. Just his luck that literally anybody else couldn’t have walked in instead. He could deal with JJ’s douchey taunts, Viktor’s patronizing smile, or even Katsudon’s _I-will-act-respectful-to-your-face-but-I’m-totally-judging-you_ brand of politeness, but Yuri actually kind of cared what Otabek thought of him.

“Hello? Are you there?” came his grandfather’s voice from the phone.

“I’m here. Sorry. I dropped something.”

“Come home for the holidays, Yurochka. You should rest. I’ll make you every kind of pirozhki. Maybe even a salad pirozhki since you seem to like that rabbit food so much.”

“Gross,” Yuri laughed. “I’ll be home in two days. Please make the beef and potato one. And the katsudon one too.” He closed his eyes and tried to recall the feeling of Dedushka’s calloused hand patting his head.

The dread sank in later as Yuri changed into his tracksuit and sneakers. Maybe Katsudon had sent the karma gods after Yuri for ripping him a new asshole about crying in the bathroom stall last year. But if this was karma, it felt disproportionate: Katsudon didn’t lose the respect of first real friend he’d made in seven years.

“Fuck!” He kicked the locker door shut, then winced and rubbed his foot.

He walked out muttering a string of obscenities to himself.

“Yuri?”

He turned around. Otabek leaned against the wall with his hands in his leather jacket, looking much cooler than Yuri felt. Yuri’s shoulders came up around his ears as he braced himself for mockery.

“You alright?”

“Yeah,” Yuri replied cautiously. “Have you been standing there the whole time?”

Otabek shrugged. “Just making sure you had your privacy.”

“Oh.” He felt his shoulders loosen. “Thanks.”

“I came by to congratulate you,” Otabek said, reaching out to shake Yuri’s hand. “If it wasn’t going to be me, I’m glad it was you.”

“You should have been there with me. I was going to roundhouse kick JJ to make room for you on the podium.”

“That’s one way to make the headlines,” Otabek laughed. He threw an arm around Yuri’s shoulders as they headed towards the exit. “GPF winner Yuri Plisetsky announces bid for UFC championship.”

He couldn’t help but grin. “That’s Yuri ‘Ice Tiger’ Plisetsky to you.”

 

Free food aside, Yuri always hated the stuffy suit-and-tie events that came with being a professional skater, but having a friend around to talk to and ignore other people with made the GPF banquet much more bearable. He and Otabek stayed at their table long after everyone had gotten up to dance.

A peal of laughter from the dance floor interrupted their conversation. The culprit, Viktor, twirled and dipped his fiancé (the word still made Yuri barf in his mouth a little whenever he thought about it) while slow-dancing. Yuuri turned bright red and buried his face into Viktor’s chest.

“You’re not fooling anyone with that shrinking violet act, Katsudon!” Yuri shouted in their direction. His protests fell on deaf ears.

As Viktor smiled down at Yuuri and stroked his hair, his eyes lit up in a way Yuri had never seen. Yuri scowled. Russia’s living legend flushed his career down the toilet for some Japanese boy who wiggled his ass at him, and now he had half a chance of ever reaching the podium again. Why did he look so damn _happy_ about it?

“Idiots,” Yuri scoffed. “I don’t get it.”

Otabek followed his gaze to the dance floor. “You’ve never been in love?”

“Love is for losers,” Yuri replied. He’d watched it shred Yakov into pieces in the wake of his divorce, transform Mila into a raging She-Hulk when she opened her then-boyfriend’s Snapchat, and reduce Georgi into an embarrassing, melodramatic mess on live television.

Otabek smiled down at his beer. “I see.”

Yuri furrowed his brow. Before he could press Otabek on why he was smiling, his phone chimed repeatedly. Multiple messages from Mila flooded his notifications bar.

 **_Mila Babicheva:_ ** _Yuri_  
**_Mila Babicheva:_ ** _Yuri_  
**_Mila Babicheva:_ ** _Yuuuuuuuuriiiiiii_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky_ ** _: ?_  
**_Mila Babicheva:_ ** _I call dibs on your new friend_  
**_Mila Babicheva:_ ** _What a smokeshow_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _wat_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _can u explain in non-douchebag terms_  
**_Mila Babicheva:_ ** _Pleeeeeease introduce me to Otabek? ^^_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _no_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _eat a dick_  
**_Mila Babicheva:_ ** _That’s the plan ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _GROSS  
_**_Mila Babicheva:_ ** _lololol_

He looked across. Two tables over, Mila grinned and batted her eyelashes at him. He flipped her the bird.

“Sorry, my rinkmate’s being a pig,” Yuri said, but when he looked over, Otabek was scrolling through his phone.

“Listen to this.” Otabek handed him an earbud and wore the other one. “It’s for my short program next season.”

Cellos started out softly and continued to a steady, powerful thrum that brought to mind Otabek’s steely gaze and powerful movements. Yuri closed his eyes at the crescendo, picturing a flawless quad salchow.

“It’s…” Yuri paused to come up with the words. He wasn’t used to giving compliments about anything other than his grandfather’s cooking. “It suits you.”

“I heard it on YouTube and instantly knew what my next theme would be.”

“What’s that?”

“Home,” Otabek said with a warmth in his voice. “Finding my way back there after so many years abroad, and always having a piece of it with me wherever I go.”

“You already have a theme,” Yuri said quietly. The thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. The logical choice would be to skate to what motivated him the most, but “winning” would have been such a douchey theme, and “winning so I can help Dedushka retire comfortably” was way too much of a sob story.

 

Yuri had never been to an afterparty before, but Christophe piqued his interest when he mentioned that he’d conveniently forgotten to invite JJ. At the hotel suite, Yuri snuck over to the minibar in desperate need of brain bleach to wash away the sight of a twerking contest between Chris and the ladies. (Chris won, but Mila protested that it was unfair since he had a much bigger butt to work with.) He winced at the first gulp of whiskey.

“Hold my beer,” he heard Otabek call out from behind him. He felt a cold glass bottle pressed into his hand. Before Yuri could ask why, Otabek breezed past him to where Yuuri sat with Viktor.

“Yuuri Katsuki.”

Yuuri blinked up in surprise. “Hi, Otabek.”

“I’ve been told that you know how to breakdance.” Otabek loosened his tie.

“Oh no, I – I’m really not great at it,” Yuuri stammered. “I just learned a bit from friends in Detroit.”

“Well, I learned a bit from my cousins in Almaty.” Otabek took off his jacket and draped it behind the chair next to Yuri. “What do you say, Katsuki?”

The music suspiciously changed from perky Top 40 to “Gold” by Kiiara. Over by the speakers, Phichit gleefully rubbed his hands together.

“I’d like to represent my hometown,” Otabek said, because only Otabek Altin could challenge someone to a breakdance battle so formally. He stood tall and stone-faced. “And I’d like to avenge my new friend,” he added, gesturing to where Yuri stood.

“ _Huh_?” Yuri felt his face flush as all eyes in the room turned to him. Then to the beer and whiskey in his hands. “I’m just holding these for Otabek,” he explained a little too quickly.

Otabek started with a deceptively simple shuffle, timing his steps to the beat. Once he’d lured Yuuri into standing up by giving him a false sense of security, he switched to more complex footwork.

“I hope you’re not mixing those,” Mila said, eyeing the bottles in his hands as she sat down beside him.

“It’s not my beer, I swear.”

She plucked the miniature bottle of whiskey from his hand and downed it in one gulp. He raised his eyebrows, mildly impressed that she didn’t even flinch.

“It gets better and better,” she said, drinking in the sight of Otabek unbuttoning his shirt. “I didn’t know your friend could dance like _that_.”

“I don’t know this person you speak of.” He buried his face in his hands and peered out between his fingers. “I have never met this dancing weirdo who is not completely embarrassing me right now.”

Mila squealed as she jumped up and caught a white shirt that nearly hit Yuri in the face. “He’s totally Channing Tatum right now! Yura, you have to introduce us.”

“I’m not his pimp,” Yuri protested.

He couldn’t tell who was winning as Otabek and Katsudon alternated a series of equally impressive b-twists and coin flips. He envied how effortless they both made it seem. Yuri had to intellectualize every aspect of a song and mentally count out the beat in order to skate to it, but the two of them moved naturally to the rhythm.

Katsudon kept things modest this year, dancing in a full suit with his tie slightly loosened, not that that stopped Viktor from swooning at every move. Meanwhile, Mila wasn’t wrong about Otabek – Yuri would never say this out loud, but he looked pretty good in a white tank top thin enough to show off his muscles rippling with every move. He forced himself to look away, feeling a little weird about staring. Mila had no such qualms, whipping her phone out to take pictures.

After a moment, Yuri quietly took out his phone to sneak one or two photos as well. For blackmail purposes.

Phichit declared it a tie and jumped in to show off his own moves, at which point the whole thing snowballed into one big dance party. Yuri stood back as more people joined the fray. When Otabek’s eyes met his, Yuri mouthed “You’re an idiot,” although the hint of a smile that crept through made his statement less convincing.

 

“I’m glad you made a friend, Yura, but he really needs to put some clothes on,” Dedushka said, peering over his glasses at the computer screen. He’d asked Yuri to help him set up “The Instagrams” so he could stay updated on Yuri while he was away.

“But it’s hard to breakdance in a three-piece suit.”

“That little Japanese boy next to him can do it.”

“Do you remember the pictures from last year? With the pole?”

His grandfather leaned in and squinted at the screen. “That was him?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps you should find more normal friends, Yura.”

 

“Surprise!”

Yuri stared at everyone in the lunch room, then made sarcastic jazz hands. “I’m so surprised. It’s not like you do this the exact same way every single year, Mila.”

“Only because I find your inability to say thank you so adorable,” she said, running up to put a party hat on him and pinch his cheeks.

“You’re pinching my cheeks and I didn’t throw you across the room,” Yuri pointed out.

“I’ll take it!”

For his birthday, Viktor and Katsudon baked him a cake (i.e. Katsudon baked him a cake and Viktor scrawled “с днем рождения!!!” on it in red frosting, adding a sprinkly heart below it because he liked to piss Yuri off like that), Yakov and Lilia got him a gift card to a high-end department store, and Mila and Georgi pitched in to buy him custom-made Chucks with tigers painted in a Japanese art style on them. In the corner of the lunch room sat a pile of cat and tiger plushies mailed in by his fans.

“And this is from Otabek.” Mila handed him a blue greeting card envelope. “But he said not to open it until he tells you to.”

Yuri turned it over in his hands, then felt his brows crease when he realized: “You’ve been talking to Otabek?”

“Just the occasional message on Instagram,” she said faux-innocently. “I told him I liked his dancing. Could you ask him to post more pictures?”

“Leave him alone, hag,” Yuri snapped. “I’d like my friend to not get all stupid over some chick.”

“You should be happy for your friend that a hot girl is interested in him!” Mila leaned in. “Unless you want him all to yourself,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Quit saying such disgusting things, you perv!” He lunged at her, only for her to catch him and lift him over her head again, laughing as he flailed.

“Is this how friendship works in Russia?” he overheard Katsudon timidly ask Viktor.

 

Sixteen felt like the last few grains of sand in an hourglass. Yuri flopped down on his bed and crossed one leg over the other. He could have sworn the hem of his jeans didn’t sit that high above his ankle before. His cat unceremoniously walked across his stomach and lay down on it.

“Just an ordinary day, Irina?” He reached down and stroked under her chin. “No matter how much my body changes, I will still be a piece of furniture to you.”

She closed her eyes to the touch, indifferent to the sudden chime of his phone. He reached one arm over to grab it, trying not to move his torso and disturb her. On an Instagram photo of Yuri with his overly cheerful rinkmates and super-gay birthday cake, Otabek left a comment: “ _happy birthday_ ” with no punctuation, which was how Yuri preferred his birthday greetings. It stood out among the capslocked, multiple-emoji, multiple-exclamation point greetings of Yuri’s Angels.

A Facebook message bubble popped up in the corner of his screen.

 **_Otabek Altin:_ ** _Your fans are great_  
**_Otabek Altin:_ ** _I’ve never seen so many words dedicated to golden, flowing hair, cutting-edge cat fashion and ice blue eyes_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _stop_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _i’ve been trying not to read them_  
**_Otabek Altin:_ ** _Although you’d think people who spend that much time collecting photos of you would notice your eyes aren’t actually ice blue_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _what_  
**_Otabek Altin:_ ** _I could probably find a heated debate about it on some forum if I searched hard enough_  
**_Otabek Altin:_ ** _Aquamarine vs turquoise vs cerulean_  
**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _you suck dude i thought we were friends_  
**_Otabek Altin:_ ** _It does start to get a bit creepy when they go into detail about_  
**_Otabek Altin:_**  
**_Otabek Altin:_ ** _…j/k I’m not going to finish that sentence  
_**_Yuri Plisetsky:_ **_brb throwing my phone at the wall_

Irina slid her head under his phone to headbutt it out of his hand. “Jeez, cat, is it Everybody’s an Asshole to Yuri Day?”

 **_Otabek Altin:_ ** _So actually_  
**_Otabek Altin:_ ** _I made you something for your birthday  
_**_Otabek Altin:_** _You can open the card afterwards_

The next message contained a link. Blood rushed to his cheeks when he realized it was a YouTube playlist.

“A playlist? That seems a bit forward…” He’d only seen playlists as gifts of courtship in those corny romcoms Mila and Georgi watched.

Before he could worry about the implications, the video titles put any questions to rest:

 _How to Ride a Motorcycle for Beginners_  
_Motorcycle New Rider Errors and Safety Tips_  
_Motorcycle Riding in Traffic  
_ _Defensive Motorcycle Riding_

Yuri set the phone down and reached into his pocket for the blue envelope. Scrawled inside the generic birthday card was a hideous drawing of what was probably supposed to be a motorcycle. Below it: _IOU riding lessons. To be redeemed next time we hang out. But watch the whole playlist first. Otabek_

He looked around his bedroom to double-check that nobody could see him smiling this hard.

 **_Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _fuck yeah_

 

Focusing on his umpteenth run-through of “Allegro Appassionato” grew increasingly difficult as flashes of light pink hair whizzed by in the corner of his eye. Mila, decked out in Final Fantasy cosplay, pranced along the ice with a magenta cape trailing her. She unsheathed a big fake sword from behind her and seamlessly worked it into her last step sequence and spin.

“How do I look?” she asked, barely out of breath.

“Ridiculous.”

“Thank you! I tried.” She beamed and tucked away her sword. “I just wanted to take a few Instagram photos wearing this, but the idea of skating with it wouldn’t leave my head! If I flesh out the routine soon enough, I might use it for Stars on Ice.”

“You mean you just put together that choreography today?”

“Yep! I kept hearing Lightning’s Theme in my head and the moves just kind of came to me.”

Yuri felt his eye twitch.

“It’ll look cooler once I take jazz dance lessons next month.” She stared at Yuri for a moment and then clapped her hands. “You should join me! It’s free for Yakov’s students since the instructor’s using one of the ballet studios here. She’s a famous Broadway dancer visiting from New York City – very glamorous lady.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You just want me to do those silly, theater-y dance moves so you can laugh at me.”

“No. Yes. Kind of.”

“I’ll pass.”

“But I’ll be so lonely! Georgi can’t make it since he’s training to be assistant coach.”

“How is that my problem?”

“C’mon, Yura, step outside the box,” Mila pleaded. “It could add some new flavor to your routines for next season.”

“This whole thing,” he said, gesturing to Mila’s light pink wig and warrior costume, “is really not my style.” He skated away to start his routine for the umpteenth-and-first time.

Or at least he would if Mila didn’t chase after him on the ice to try to put her wig on him. At least he got a decent speed skating workout that afternoon.

 

Having Dedushka cheer for him from the kiss and cry at the World Championships elevated his “Agape” performance from great to transcendent. He didn’t notice the dull ache in his right knee until he’d stepped off the ice, and Yakov was too thrilled with his score to complain about Yuri overdoing it again with the second-half jumps. At the end of the short program portion, he was only two points behind Katsudon, who skated a better “Eros” than his GPF performance (low bar to clear, Yuri thought).

The following day, Yuri savored the roar of the ice beneath his skates, ready to claim his second gold medal with a flawless free skate. Now free of idiotic frustrations about Katsudon retiring, Yuri focused his mind on counting the beats in his head to time his movements. He channeled Lilia’s perfection, moving as though she pulled strings that controlled each muscle. He opted not to raise his arms during the quad that he screwed up last time, determined to complete a perfect, error-free program.

He spread his arms triumphantly at the music’s finish, proud of the searing ache in every muscle. No other skater was this willing to sell their soul and destroy their body for a gold medal.

 

On the leftmost podium, he repeated Lilia’s voice in his head so he could get through the next ten minutes: _Shoulders back. Head high. Chin up. Carry yourself with grace and beauty._ Between each sentence, an intrusive “now what?” popped in, and he’d redirect his mind back to Lilia’s “grace and beauty” mantra but the “now what, now what, now fucking what” grew louder each time.

He ripped the bronze medal off and hid it in his hand as soon as he made his way backstage.

His grandfather held his arms out upon seeing him. “Yurochka, that’s the most beautiful skating I’ve seen from you yet!”

Yuri felt like a million shards of glass in Dedushka’s embrace.

“Why do you look so sad?”

Yuri unfolded his hand and stared down at the medal like he was trying to burn a hole through it. “You flew here and I couldn’t even win a gold medal for you.”

“There’s nothing you could do to stop me from being proud of you,” his grandfather said, ruffling Yuri’s hair. “You could run away and join the Moscow Cat Theater and I would still brag about you to my neighbors, but instead you’ve become the best skater in the whole world.” He took the medal from Yuri’s hand and gently placed it around Yuri’s neck.

“I’ll be better next year,” Yuri promised.

“My child, you’ve grown up far too soon.” A sad smile crossed his grandfather’s face. “Let’s celebrate, my treat. We’ll order anything you want from room service, and something fancy for Irina too. You shouldn’t think about working so hard all the time.”

“It’s important to me, Dedushka.”

“As long as it makes you happy,” his grandfather sighed. “Are you happy when you skate?”

“Of course,” Yuri replied a little too quickly.

As he silently followed his grandfather to the arena exit, he replayed the skating in his head, trying to find any trace of happiness in the movements. He stopped trying after a few minutes, convinced that he skated his best when emotions didn’t cloud his performance.

 

“I’m not good at congratulating people,” Yuri explained as soon as Otabek opened his hotel room door. “But you stopped by to congratulate me before so I guess this is a thing people do.”

“For starters, maybe don’t do it at one in the morning,” Otabek mumbled as he smoothed back his sleep-rumpled hair.

“I had to wait until Dedushka was asleep. Anyway. Uh. Congratulations on getting silver,” Yuri said to his own shoes.

“You really mean that?”

“I will eventually,” Yuri grumbled. “Accept it before I take it back.”

Otabek nodded. “Thank you. Congratulations to you too.”

“Don’t.”

“It’s a medal. Are you not proud of how you skated?”

Yuri would have grabbed him by the shirt, but there was no shirt to grab on to. “I skated my ass off,” he said through gritted teeth. “I. Gave. It. _Everything._ ”

“Are you okay?”

Yuri looked away and shoved his fists into the pockets of his hoodie.

“Come in,” Otabek said, stepping aside.

Yuri walked in and flopped backwards onto the couch, hands still in his pockets. He lay wordlessly for a few minutes. Otabek pulled up a chair and waited.

“I knew I’d lost before I even saw Katsudon’s score,” Yuri finally said to the ceiling.

“How did you know?”

“He had this look in his eyes, the same one you had when you told me about your next theme. I watched him put his whole life on the ice and I thought, ‘I have no idea what that feels like.’” Yuri’s fingers turned as cold as they did the first time that realization hit him. “Unless I figure it out, he will always have something that I don’t.”

“Everyone has something. You have advantages that he doesn’t.”

“And my best wasn’t good enough. You know what happens to skaters after they turn 16. I don’t have Katsudon’s stamina or your strength. I don’t know how to tell stories like Viktor.” He sat up and drew his knees to his chest. “I only know how to do what Yakov and Lilia tell me to do.”

“That’s not true, I’ve seen –”

“I’ve never told anybody that,” Yuri said, horrified. “Fuck. I shouldn’t have told you that.” The last time he’d been that open with anyone was seven years ago in Moscow. Piotr. Yuri blinked several times, hoping to erase the mental image of a face he’d tried hard to forget.

Piotr was the only rinkmate who sat with him in the lunch room, the only boy to call Yuri by his name instead of “fairy” or some other unkind term about his feminine appearance. But after Yuri was chosen over Piotr for a local competition, his friend began to “forget” his spot at the table and eventually told him to “Get lost, you fucking fairy.”

Eight-year-old Yuri learned that success and friendship were mutually exclusive. Trusting people meant that they could use your weaknesses against you. Piotr did. Otabek could.

“Yuri? Yuri!”

He blinked. When his sight came into focus, Otabek stood in front of him, waving his hand in front of Yuri’s face.

“Yuri, your hands are shaking.”

“You must think I’m fucking weird,” Yuri said in a tone barely above a whisper.

“I don’t think you’re weird.” Otabek breathed warm air into his hands before folding them around Yuri’s to stop them from shaking. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay.” He walked over to the kitchen counter, picked up a helmet and scarf and tossed them to Yuri. “Come on.”

 

“Where are you taking me?” Yuri asked, long after he’d already gotten on the motorbike.

“Nowhere, really,” Otabek replied. “Just look up at the stars until your mind is quiet. I’ll head back whenever you’re ready.”

Yuri stared up at thousands of them dotting the night sky. He took a deep breath, inhaling winter air and the light scent of Otabek’s scarf. He tightened his arms around Otabek and rested his chin on the back of his leather jacket.

 

Yuri practiced jumps all afternoon to improve his stamina. Yesterday, he worked on agility. The day before that, flexibility. All interspersed with squats and leg presses per the gym routine Otabek sent him.

“You need to stop wasting time, Yura,” Yakov called out from the bleachers. “I can’t come up with choreography until you pick something. Just let me do it since you can’t make up your mind!”

“I told you a million times, I want to pick the music!” Yuri yelled back mid-jump.

Across the rink, Katsudon skated part of a new routine that he’d come up with himself. Viktor applauded with way more enthusiasm than it warranted, but to Katsudon’s credit, at least he actually had something. Yuri spent the last few nights scrolling through Spotify and VEVO but couldn’t find anything that inspired that vague feeling he’d seen in his rival’s eyes at Worlds.

His fingernails dug into his palms as he coasted towards the bleachers.

Yakov pulled him aside. “I called Lilia,” he said. “She has a friend at the National Orchestra who can compose a piece for you. You just have to give her a theme before the end of the week.”

Yuri nodded. “I’ll figure something out.”

“I’m trying to make this easy for you, Yura,” Yakov sighed.

“I know.” It was the closest he would get to actually saying thank you out loud.

He looked back to the rink where Katsudon flubbed a quad. Again. Yuri often found it hard to imagine that this insecure klutz just won Worlds – the very thought of it made Yuri want to stab himself in the face – but then the aforementioned klutz picked himself up and grinned sheepishly at Viktor. Yuri never smiled like that after falling on his ass.

Was “I’m running out of time and these idiots are getting ahead of me” a good enough theme? In his head, Yuri could hear Lilia chide him for his language.

Yuri took a bite of pirozhki and frowned at the open notebook in front of him. Ignoring the ruled lines on the page, he’d scrawled the following in no particular order: “not love,” “fire,” “tiger,” “NOT LOVE (so unoriginal),” “fury,” “punk rock,” “blood sweat tears,” “god this sucks,” “give up already.” Last season, he had broken himself down to a blank slate so Lilia could rebuild him. How could anyone draw inspiration from a blank slate?

The closest he’d gotten to expressing himself on the ice was his GPF exhibition skate. He’d chosen his favorite rock band’s latest single, “Welcome to the Madness,” and as much as Yakov hated that kind of music, he begrudgingly agreed to choreograph it for Yuri “so you don’t embarrass yourself.”

For two and a half glorious minutes, Yuri Plisetsky was nobody’s goddamn fairy. He wore ripped jeans, a loose black shirt with a tiger on it, artfully smudged black eyeliner, and bright purple streaks in his hair (Lilia made him swear he’d only use temporary dye). As guitar riffs and high-pitched wailing blasted from the speakers, Yuri went crazy with combination spins and air drums. In the audience, Yuri’s Angels squealed, Yakov scowled, and Lilia gracefully suppressed her disdain for punk rock with a neutral expression. When he returned to the locker room, he received a text from Otabek: _That was fucking cool._

Yuri grinned at the memory. He picked up his pen and circled the word “fire” several times.

 

Lilia steepled her fingers. “Fire,” she said.

Yuri traced circles in his soup with a spoon to stop himself from fidgeting under her discerning glare. “If I should skate the way I feel, I know I can do ‘fire’ well.”

“Explain.”

He fought the urge to roll his eyes. It was a figure skating theme, not a fucking senior thesis. “It’s what I want everyone to see when they watch me skate.”

“How vague.” She rested her chin on her hand. “A directionless fire burns out easily. What fuels your fire?”

He racked his brain. Winning? Dedushka? The urge to spite certain five-time medalists and their pet pork cutlet bowls? Proving to the world that he's more than a fairy or a punk or some other lazy label?

“If you have to think about it, I wouldn't call it fire.” She stood up. “I invite you to consider what motivates you. Until then, I'm not going to waste my friend's time with half-formed ideas.”

After Lilia excused herself from the table, he crumpled the napkin in his hand.

Since he moved to St. Petersburg to train, Yuri only ever knew the golden tightrope: every bit of praise, every achievement, and every gold medal only added more pressure to be the best all the time, at all costs. He'd already lost big once, at Worlds, and his father once told him that people were allowed only one big mistake in life; any more and they’d be proven losers. His father then proceeded to prove himself right the second time Dedushka caught him wasting Yuri's prize money on alcohol. Dedushka forbade him from seeing Yuri again until he got sober and got a job. That was two years ago, and Yuri had mostly given up on waiting.

Was “I can’t afford to fuck it up again” a good enough theme?

He ran outside to look up at the stars. The night sky in St. Petersburg wasn’t as clear as it was in Helsinki, with half the stars hidden behind clouds.

 

 _I wish we had more time together._ Yuri’s thumb hovered over the “send” button for a brief second before furiously tapping “backspace” several times.

He tossed his phone aside and buried his face into his pillow. He tried to ignore the memory of how Otabek felt in his arms, and failed for the fifth night in a row.

“God fucking damn it.”

 

He figured it was too soon in their friendship to ask if Otabek could visit, or vice versa, so World of Warships on Friday nights was the next best thing.

“Dude, the Worlds silver medalist can afford a better graphics card,” Yuri laughed over teamspeak as he watched Otabek’s battleship go down in flames on his computer screen. “We’re gonna keep losing if you don’t upgrade that piece of shit.” He knew he could score more wins without a newbie like Otabek on his team, but losing with Otabek was admittedly more fun than winning. In gaming, anyway.

“I wanted to wait until I got my own apartment to start building a new PC,” Otabek said lamely. “Are you eating Doritos?”

“Yeah, don’t tell Lilia,” Yuri said while firing methodically at enemy ships. “Wait, you could tell what I was eating just from _hearing_ it?”

“I could tell once I had to pull my headset away from my ear so I wouldn’t go deaf.”

He bit into another chip loudly in response.

“You could make me completely deaf and I’d still be a better breakdancer than you,” Otabek laughed. “By the way, I hope you’ve been brushing up on those motorcycle videos because I’m getting you on a bike in a couple of weeks.”

Yuri dropped the chip bag in shock, startling the cat wrapped around his foot. “You’re visiting?” he asked, trying to temper the excitement in his voice.

“Yeah. Mila invited me to this jazz dance class and my coach thought it was a good idea. He wants me to be more expressive and dynamic when I skate.”

His face fell at the mention of Mila’s name.

“You’ll be in the class too, right?” Otabek asked. "It's Tuesday and Thursday evenings, so it shouldn't interfere with your training.”

“Yeah, already signed up,” Yuri lied. Fucking jazz dance. He was going to look like such an idiot for the next month. As he watched his own battleship sink into the sea, he contemplated confiscating Mila’s and Otabek’s phones before every class and faking some kind of skin condition if anyone tried to make him wear a glittery leotard.

 

“Lilia seems nice. I’m glad she’s cool with me visiting.”

“What can I say, she likes hosting guests.” Yuri decided not to mention that he promised her he’d scrub the toilets for a month if she let Otabek stay. “Your bed’s on the right. The one without all the stuff on it,” he said as he opened his bedroom door. “C’mon, Irina, get your stinky cat ass off my notebook.”

“Hello.” Otabek picked her up and cradled her before Yuri could say “no, don’t.” The cat squirmed a little and then relaxed into Otabek’s arms.

“Huh. I thought she hated everyone who wasn’t me or Dedushka.”

“Oh, so she’s exactly like you, then,” Otabek remarked with a grin.

“Shut up.” Yuri flung a pillow at him, which he impressively dodged without startling the cat. “I didn’t know you were good with cats.”

“We weren’t allowed to have pets in the house, so my sister volunteered at an animal shelter twice a month. She used to bribe me with tokens to the arcade next door to get me to help out, but eventually I kept going with her even after the arcade closed down.” Otabek set Irina down on the floor, but she jumped back on his lap the second he sat down on his bed. “Did you name her after your favorite skater?”

“No, Irina was my mother’s name. Dedushka got the cat a year after she died.”

“I’m sorry."

Yuri shrugged. “I was 7 at the time, and I barely saw her because she taught skating lessons in the evenings. It was harder on Dedushka. She was his only daughter.” Yuri picked up the notebook and sat down on his bed across from Otabek. “When I moved my home rink to St. Petersburg, he gave me Irina so I’d always have family with me.” He reached over and scratched her chin. He didn’t tell Otabek that looking at her stung every once in a while because in the right lighting, Irina had the same color as his mother’s eyes.

“What are you working on?” Otabek asked, looking at Yuri’s notebook.

“I was trying to pick a theme. I chose ‘fire,’ but Lilia won’t commission the music for it until I ‘truly understand it.’” Yuri rolled his eyes.

“I’m surprised she won’t. The theme suits you.”

“You think so?”

“I’ve always thought so,” Otabek said. “It’s like I told you when we met again in Barcelona: I know what it feels like to fight alone for so long. People like us don’t get this far without developing a certain fire.”

 

Intermediate Jazz Dance was blessedly free of glittery leotards and white gloves, and Yuri’s ballet background made it easy for him to learn the moves. Since musicality was so crucial to the dance style, however, Yuri felt horribly exposed, especially when the instructor called him out on it in front of the class. “If this were contemporary dance, Blondie, you’d be perfect. But this is modern jazz. You need to feel the music!”

The instructor, Allie, was a tall, thin black woman in her fifties who carried herself with the same grace as Lilia, but was her polar opposite in every other way: a bespectacled perpetual smiler who talked with her hands and had a penchant for flowy blouses. Yuri bristled at her brand of touchy-feely, abstract feedback: “Your rhythm is good, but become a vessel, not a brick wall,” she told Otabek. “Carry the music within you.”

Otabek went from stone-faced to struggling-stone-faced as he worked on his calypso leap.

“I can still see you thinking, Blondie,” Allie trilled. “Less thinking, more feeling!”

“I’m _feeling_ like this shit is stupid,” he muttered in Russian under his breath, timing his calypsos with Otabek. “Are all Americans like this?”

“Still beats ballet class,” Otabek replied.

Naturally, Mila stood out as the instructor’s favorite. She couldn’t match Yuri's precision, but unlike him, Mila wasn’t hamstrung by nagging thoughts about how stupid this all was. “Wonderful, Mila, throw yourself into it!”

“She likes you because you’re shameless,” Yuri hissed at her.

Mila stuck her tongue out at him in the middle of a perfect front fall. “Is that such a bad thing?”

Once class was over, Allie ordered the students to pair off for the dance recital at the end of the course. Each pair had to choreograph a 90-second dance with the moves they learned in class, with regular guidance from Allie. Most of the boys in the class looked hopefully at Mila, who sidled up to Otabek.

Yuri shot up a hand. “Can I dance solo?”

 

Motorcycle lessons would have offered a nice reprieve from the stress of choreographing, if only Otabek had rented a cooler bike. “What is this shit?”

Otabek patted the seat of the small, nondescript Kawasaki. “If you end up in the hospital with a broken leg, you’re not going to be thinking, ‘At least I got to learn on a cool bike.’”

Learning to balance himself on a motorbike was easier than trying to ignore the fact that Otabek’s fingers grazed his on the handle, ready to catch him if he fell sideways. Yuri fixed his gaze forward. Over the years, he’d mastered the art of letting pesky romantic feelings silently fade through neglect, but he’d never gotten this _close_ to someone before. His Plan B for more persistent crushes was to mask his feelings with hostility: if he torpedoed his chances with someone by being cruel to them, the feelings could only wither and die.

He looked over at Otabek, who looked back at him with that almost-smile in his eyes, and Yuri really wished he would stop doing that because then he’d have to come up with a Plan C.

“What do you think of Mila?”

The almost-smile blinked away into confusion. “Um. She’s nice? She’s a good dancer?”

“I mean, like, do you think she’s pretty?”

Otabek shrugged. “Sure, she’s pretty. Not sure why you’re asking, though.”

Yuri carefully ensured that not a single facial muscle betrayed the stabby feeling in his gut, even though expecting a different answer to “do you think this conventionally attractive figure skater with a huge Instagram following is pretty” was admittedly unrealistic.

 

Yuri tried to avoid this particular song because the lyrics were so humiliatingly on-the-nose, but it was the only one that made him move – the bass was sick. Once he’d strung a few moves together and practiced, the “5, 6, 7, 8” in his head faded away, replaced by the music ( _“Oh, the less I know the better”_ ) and the mental image of Mila with her hands all over Otabek during rehearsals. His double illusion turn may have been a little more forceful than intended.

He felt dumb – he felt a little like Georgi – so naturally Allie loved it. “Amazing, Yuri.”

“I only have 40 seconds so far.”

“And those 40 seconds contain the most attitude I’ve seen from you. It’s like you’re angry but you’re trying to draw someone in. Very nuanced, I love it.”

For her dance with Otabek, Mila had picked a sensual Ellie Goulding number because _of course_ Mila would. They moved like honey, flowing to the rhythm. She was feather-light in his arms through lifts and hand stands. Yuri searched Otabek’s face for any hint of emotion towards her.

“The style is good,” Allie said. “What story are you trying to tell?”

“Two people trying to resist, then giving in,” Mila said.

“Hmm. But she sings about a love triangle. Something's not connecting.” Allie put her index finger to her chin for a moment. “Ah, I know! Yuri, since you’re the only student dancing solo here, I think I’ve found a good opportunity for you to learn collaboration.”

Yuri’s face instinctively scrunched up at the word “collaboration.”

“I love the fire you bring to your movements. It would add another dimension to their story,” Allie said. Yuri tried not to grin at either the compliment or the realization that she liked his choreography better than Mila’s. “Trio dances are more complex, but you’re all very talented – I’m sure you’d be up to the challenge.”

“I love a challenge,” Mila chirped. Otabek nodded.

Yuri glared at her. “You’re on.”

 

“5, 6, 7, 8, this is dumb, this is dumb,” Yuri thought as he rehearsed this weird, artsy tug-of-war over Mila at her apartment.

_“Triangles are my favorite shape. Three points where two lines meet…”_

He reached an arm over his head to catch her raised ankle. She burst out laughing and held onto his shoulders for support.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, lowering her leg and straightening herself as Otabek paused the music. “We have, like, zero chemistry. You look like you want to throw me across the room, not hold on to me.”

“But I’m always like that.”

“Yes, but in dance you have to act,” she said. “Sell the story. When I run towards you, pretend I’m someone else, someone you’ve been in love with.”

“Love is stupid and I’m better than that, Mila, how many times do I have to tell you?”

Sensing his discomfort, Otabek walked over to him. “There’s nothing wrong with not knowing what it feels like. You can tell a story instead. Remember when we saw Viktor and Yuuri dancing? Try to imagine that emotion.”

Yuri glared at him. “If I picture those two assholes while I’m dancing, we’ll end up with a Mila-shaped hole in the wall.”

Otabek turned his head so Mila wouldn’t see him suppress a laugh. “Okay then, let’s try something different. I liked your solo dance. What were you feeling?”

“I was pissed off about something,” Yuri admitted.

“Alright, so instead of fighting me for her, you could fight to keep both of us apart. Then you can be kind of pissed off the whole time.”

“You could be Fate!” Mila exclaimed. “How sexy.”

They reworked the choreography over the next few classes, each time incorporating new moves that Allie taught them. Yuri had more fun with the new version, even admiring Mila’s creative use of splits and high kicks while struggling against “Fate’s” grasp. He tried not to think about the buzzing sensation under his skin that occurred whenever Otabek’s hands were on him.

 

At Mila’s suggestion, the three of them went out dinner after every class to show Otabek the variety of restaurants in St. Petersburg. Although sitting across the table to witness Mila get closer to Otabek twice a week felt awfully masochistic, it seemed preferable to letting the two of them go off to dinner alone.

Watching Mila flirt was a bit like watching Katsudon skate. Both made him want to break things in half, and both astonished him in ways he didn’t expect. She didn’t embarrass herself by overdoing it like Yuri had sort of hoped she would; she was subtle and natural, barely flirting if not for the twinkle in her eye when Otabek answered her questions.

Otabek didn’t necessarily flirt back, but he didn’t push her away, either, which in Yuri’s mind was almost as bad.

Her questions grew bolder after a couple of weeks. “What was your first kiss like?”

“With a girl or with a guy?” Otabek asked as he helped himself to the fries.

A loud and violent coughing fit ensued as Yuri’s sip of milkshake went down the wrong way. Meanwhile, Mila blushed and tried to hide a grin.

“Problem?” Otabek glanced down at Yuri, who was still bent over from coughing.

“No, just surprised that you could say it like that,” Yuri rasped.

“You two are my friends. If that part of me bothered you, then we wouldn’t be friends anymore. Simple.”

Some people made it look so easy. Yuri took a careful sip of water, watching him over the rim of the glass.

 

On his way out of the locker room after a particularly long training session, Yuri glimpsed a familiar figure gliding on the ice. He walked to the barrier and rubbed his eyes. In the years they’d trained together, he had never seen Viktor Nikiforov practice late at night. “Shouldn’t you be out drinking somewhere? Or whatever it is you do instead of party now that you’ve been domesticated?”

Viktor landed a perfect quad flip, curtsied, and then pretend-fainted on the ice. “Ah, my stamina’s not what it used to be these days.” He grinned at Yuri. “Youth is wasted on the young.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Coaching Yuuri keeps me busy during the day, so I come here at night to work on my own program.” Viktor leaned over the barrier, motioning for the water bottle next to him.

Yuri sat down and tossed the bottle at him. “Is it worth it? You look exhausted.”

“You tell me,” Viktor said before taking a swig.

“How could I tell you if it’s worth it? I have no idea what you see in Katsudon.”

“Not that,” Viktor laughed. “My new program. What do you think? I welcome your honestly brutal opinion.”

Yuri paused, unable to find anything to insult about it. “It’s…different.”

“Good! I felt something new when I put it together,” Viktor said. The small smile on his face as he looked away was startlingly unlike his trademark overly-rehearsed grin. “Telling a love story is so different now that I know what it actually feels like.”

“Bleh.”

Viktor clasped his hands and gazed heavenward. “May the angels bring this grumpy boy his true love so that he can stop being so bitter.”

“Give me back that bottle so I can hit you in the face with it.”

He laughed and beckoned Yuri. “Can I tell you a secret, Yurio?” he whispered as Yuri walked towards him. “I achieve the feeling of this skate by focusing my mind on one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“My future with Yuuri. Tomorrow, next month, ten years from now,” he said. “What a gift it is to come home to the love of my life every day. I haven’t told him this yet, but when we retire, I want to host a travel show with him! We’ll visit little towns like Hasetsu and make friends with the locals and do cute things and say ‘vkusno!’” His childish excitement came at Yuri like a glitter bomb.

“Viktor, that’s the gayest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

With a flourish, Viktor pushed himself backwards to start his routine again. He floated along the ice with bliss and lightness, dancing from the heart instead of the imagination. Until now, Yuri hadn’t even considered him a threat for next season, given Viktor’s assured downslide into mediocrity. Yuri stood and stared as Viktor’s new program reminded him how much he hated being wrong.

 

When he got home, he found Otabek sitting in his computer chair, waving a cat toy around on a string as Irina tirelessly chased after it, her pupils wide as saucers. Yuri leaned against the doorway. For a split second he thought that coming home to this everyday might not be so terrible, then he shook the offending thought out of his head. Stupid Nikiforov glitter bomb.

 

_“Three guns and one goes off, one’s empty, and one’s not quick enough…”_

Yuri walked into the ballet studio nursing a coffee and a frown left over from having to stand in line for so long. His frown deepened at the sight that greeted him across the floor: Otabek and Mila dancing closely, gracefully, beautifully without him. She ran towards Otabek for the lift, but he lost balance and fell backward with her landing on top of him. They looked at each other and laughed.

Yuri’s grip tightened around his coffee cup. They looked so good together. He was an idiot to think he could ever compete with Mila: she was beautiful, she was outgoing, and unlike Yuri, she didn’t have the unfortunate habit of antagonizing people she liked.

It wouldn’t be the first time he lost someone to a more charismatic rinkmate, so Yuri figured he might as well get used to the pain. Replace Mila and Otabek’s faces and this sight was, and would continue to be, the story of his life: someone he cared about dancing with someone else.

No big deal. Yuri could let it go. He’s had plenty of practice, after all. He watched Otabek’s face, the calm eyes that quieted his mind during panic attacks and lit up when Yuri made dumb jokes. He relaxed his grip on the cup.

As Mila stood up, she caught Yuri’s gaze and lost her footing. Yuri walked over to set his duffel bag and coffee down, trying hard to look like he didn’t give a fuck.

“So, actually, you and Yuri should practice the _‘toe to toe, back to back’_ sequence again,” he heard her say to Otabek. “I’ll watch and make sure you’ve got the mood right.”

Yuri looked at her quizzically, but she kept a straight face. Once class was dismissed, Mila excused herself from joining them for their regular dinner, claiming she was sick.

“Let’s go to the grocery,” Otabek said later, as he and Yuri headed towards the exit. “We can make soup and bring it over to her apartment.”

Yuri stopped in his tracks before Otabek pushed open the exit doors. “Shit, I forgot my water bottle at the studio. Hang on just a second.”

The ballet studio was empty, but eventually Yuri found her by the side of the rink, lacing up her skates.

“You’re not sick,” he said.

“I should have figured it out sooner.” Mila didn’t look up. “I would have backed off if you’d just told me, you know.”

“Told you what?”

“Yuri.” She leveled him with a look. “Your face when you walked into the studio this afternoon. I’ve seen you in pain before, but not like _that._ ”

“Don’t be dramatic, Mila.”

“Don’t lie to me, Yuri.”

He crossed his arms. “You won anyway, so what does it matter?”

“Won what?”

“You always get any guy you want. I just got unlucky that you set your sights on someone I…” Yuri rolled his eyes. He couldn’t find a non-stupid way to finish that sentence. “Whatever.”

“That’s the most flattering thing you’ve ever said to me in the years I’ve known you,” she laughed, “but it’s not true. The guy I like whisked somebody else away on a motorcycle to a romantic overlook in Barcelona –”

“We had to hide from screaming fangirls!”

“Defended somebody else’s honor in a dance battle –”

“He had three beers!”

“And casts longing glances at somebody else when I’m sitting right next to him at our dinners.”

“You’re exaggerating!”

“Yura.” She stood up, smiling gently as she rested her hands on his shoulders. Then she proceeded to shake him. “His face lights up when you talk, he rushes to your side when you’re uncomfortable, that boy would club JJ Leroy in the kneecap for you if you asked him _you dense idiot!_ ”

“O-okay I get it s-s-stop shaking me!”

“Boys.” She crossed her arms and turned away from him. “I swear to God.”

An uncomfortable silence stretched on for several minutes.

“So that’s it?” Yuri said. “You’re not gonna do anything?”

“Yup.”

“I don’t understand. You never give up.”

“One of these days, Yura, you’ll realize that it’s not always about winning,” she said. “There are billions of beautiful men in the world, but only one who I know will make you happy.” She reached over to ruffle his hair. He didn’t swat her hand away for once.

He stayed behind as she got up and headed towards the rink. Before stepping on the ice, she looked back at him one more time. “Hey, Yuri?”

“What?”

“I know you think Otabek is your only friend, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us haven’t been trying.”

“Right.” He hung his head and stared hard at the floor. “Mila?”

“Hm?”

“I’m glad he’s not my only friend.”

 

The movement of shadows outside Yuri’s window woke him up.

“Otabek,” he whispered, “I think there’s someone –”

He stopped upon noticing that the bed across him was empty. He liked to tease Otabek about going to bed at “old man hours,” but a glance at his phone told him it was 1:15 in the morning. Sensing trouble, Yuri threw on a hoodie and quietly snuck outside.

Illuminated only by moonlight and the faint glow of his cellphone on the grass, Otabek practiced segments of the choreography while trying to keep a basketball in the air; the ball was presumably a stand-in for Mila. He had a faraway look in his eyes, only coming into focus when his gaze landed on Yuri. “Sorry, was the music too loud? I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s fine,” Yuri said, leaning against the wall. “You’re way past your old man curfew, though. Are you nervous about the recital tomorrow?”

Otabek nodded. “I haven’t perfected the lifts yet. I don’t want to screw it up in front of everyone’s friends and family.”

“It’s just a dance class.”

“You don’t believe that. You and I never half-ass anything, even one-month crash courses.” Otabek stared at him for a moment. “Hey, would you – never mind, it’s stupid.”

“No, you’re right.” Yuri bent down to restart the music. He walked over to stand in front of Otabek. “We should practice.”

“You know her moves?”

“Yeah, I learned them once I got bored with my own.” Although choreographing was new to him, memorizing others’ choreography was something he’d been doing for half a decade.

As they danced, he felt a swell of pride at how easily he could switch between his role and Mila’s depending on who was interacting with Otabek in the song. He lacked her pizzazz and instead moved with vulnerability, having never danced so intimately before.

His face flushed when Otabek grabbed his waist. In rehearsals, he’d been painfully aware of how close Mila was to Otabek, but until now he hadn’t experienced it from her perspective. He tried to tell himself that his heart was racing purely from the physical exertion, but it calmed down slightly when the choreography progressed to dance combinations side-by-side rather than face-to-face.

At the second chorus where the singer went _“Go alone, my flower,”_ he ran and leapt sideways in time for Otabek to catch him by the torso and leg. This transitioned to the part Yuri especially hated watching, where Mila wrapped her legs around Otabek’s torso, set one foot down behind her, and did intricate, sensual moves while draped from his thigh. His heart pounded louder and faster as they danced. Otabek’s fingers felt like fire as they ran down his spine. Their faces were now barely an inch from each other.

He froze. Looking into Otabek’s eyes made him forget the next steps. Looking at his mouth made him forget his own name.

“Sorry,” Yuri said breathlessly.

Neither of them moved and the music played on without them. Yuri’s hands rested on Otabek’s shoulders and his right thigh was held in Otabek’s firm grip. His heartbeat sped up to full crescendo even as they stayed perfectly still, so he couldn’t blame the physicality anymore. He looked up at Otabek’s darkened eyes in the blue moonlight and knew that if he moved forward even an inch, he would find out what those lips felt like. He swallowed.

What the fuck was he thinking?

“Um. Looks like you’re ready!” He dismounted clumsily and toppled backwards. “Really nailed those lifts. I should go to bed.” He ran off before Otabek could say anything.

Yuri wrapped himself in a blanket and stared hard at the wall, not budging even when Otabek returned to the bedroom a half hour later. He lay still and waited for the buzzing in his body to die down.

 

Their “Tessellate” dance in its final form had traces of everyone’s styles throughout: Mila’s playful theatricality, Otabek’s hip hop influence, and Yuri’s classical background. As Fate, Yuri dressed in white while Mila donned a little black dress she probably borrowed from Sara. Otabek, torn between Fate and his lover, wore a gray tank top and black jeans.

In rehearsals, Yuri channeled Fate with a lot of anger and power, but today in front of an audience, his expressions and movements went in a different direction: fear tinged with melancholy. Fate feared losing something important to him. It provided a more interesting contrast to the raw sensuality of Mila’s and Otabek’s moves.

Viktor barely waited for Allie to finish praising them before he ran up to them. “You’re all so beautiful! It’s like a Calvin Klein ad, but with talent.”

 

Yuri’s awkward small talk with Otabek died down halfway through the cab ride to the airport. Keeping a conversation going was a struggle when Yuri’s mind kept running through all the things he wanted to say.

He wanted to say, “I shouldn’t have run away the other night, but I’m really fucked up about having feelings and I didn’t want to screw this up.”

He wanted to say, “I have no idea what I’m doing or how any of this works, but I want to try anyway.”

He wanted to say, “I really want to know what your mouth tastes like.”

He wanted to say, “Fuck you. Fuck you for being kind, for seeing me for who I really am, and for looking good in a leather jacket. You ruined everything. I like you.”

In the corner of his eye, he saw Otabek’s hand resting between them on the car seat. Yuri tentatively reached for it, almost touching before the cab driver bellowed, “Pulkovo Airport.”

“I had a great time,” Otabek said as Yuri helped him unload his luggage from the trunk. “Maybe you can come visit me in Almaty one of these days.”

“Yeah.” Yuri couldn’t bear it anymore. He had to say _something_. “Otabek –”

Otabek stepped forward to hug him. “Yuri, no matter what happens, I’ll always be your friend.”

Friend. The word stunned him into silence. Otabek had offered him the gift of friendship “no matter what.” The gift of “always.” The gift of loyalty. And to someone who had always been terrified of losing it all, that meant everything. Asking for more would have been downright selfish.

Yuri relaxed into the embrace and buried his face in Otabek’s shoulder. “Dumbass.”

 

Unable to sleep, Yuri busied himself with gathering the towels, bedsheets, and pillowcases and dumping them in the washing machine. He cleared the empty wrappers from his computer desk. Irina sat on his open notebook, watching him with hazel eyes.

“You can have it. I don’t need it anymore,” he said. Lilia was smart enough to pick a suitable theme and tailor the choreography to his changing body.

He sat in the middle of his bedroom floor and stared at Otabek’s now-empty bed, unsure of what to think. Irina climbed down to sit on his lap.

“It’s fine,” he said, stroking her fur. “Everything’s fine.”

He pulled out his phone to distract himself with Instagram. Viktor had tagged him in a photo taken after the recital. In the photo, Mila grinned and had her arm around Yuri while he stuck his tongue out at the camera, ever the reluctant subject. Otabek wore a half-smile, looking at Yuri like he didn’t even know a photo was being taken.

Yuri tossed the phone onto the bed behind him and buried his face in his hands. “For fuck’s sake,” he sighed.

 

 ** _Yuri Plisetsky:_ ** _can i come over? need to ask you something  
_**_Mila Babicheva:_ ** _Yeah sure, we’re just watching vampire drama atm_

Although Yuri had seen Mila in a variety of ridiculous getups, he’d never seen her quite like…this. Fluffy pink bathrobe, hair pulled up in a messy bun, and: “Why is your face covered in wet cement?”

“It’s a mud mask,” Georgi called out from inside. His face was also covered in wet cement, but the hair poking out from above it was distinctly Georgi-shaped.

Yuri stared at him, slack-jawed.

Georgi shrugged. “Mila said it would detoxify my skin and help with my complexion. Gotta look good for my Tinder profile.”

“You’ll understand when you’re older.” Mila grinned as she held out a bowl. “Popcorn?”

Love made fools out of everyone, Yuri thought. Only foolishness could compel him to sit between two gray-faced gargoyles on the couch, sharing a bowl of popcorn as they watched reruns of Vampire Diaries.

“Why’d you come over, Yura?” Mila asked.

“Can we talk about it later?” he said as he side-eyed Georgi. “It’s kind of personal.”

“If you’re looking for advice on your new biker boyfriend, just go ahead and ask her,” Georgi said. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Otabek’s not my boyfriend.” After realizing what Georgi said, he turned to Mila. “You told Georgi?”

“She didn’t tell me anything.” Georgi tossed a piece of popcorn into the air and expertly caught it in his mouth. “Yuri, you’re not exactly subtle.”

“What.” Yuri almost wished he had a wet cement mud mask to hide the way the color drained from his face right then.

“So he’s not your boyfriend?” Mila asked.

“I couldn’t tell him.” Yuri threw up his hands. “I’m not like you. I’m not…I don’t know, shameless.”

She laughed. “Well, there’s the Mila way of doing things, where you’re awesome and confident and let things happen naturally, and then there’s the Georgi way of doing things, where you make a big dramatic display in front of a crowd.”

“Hey!” Georgi threw a piece of popcorn at her face. “I’ll have you know I got a lot of fan mail for that performance. Women like a sensitive guy.”

“As I was saying before Mr. Sensitive rudely interrupted me,” she said, picking the popcorn out of her mud mask, “confidence, Yuri. It doesn’t come from winning all the time, it comes from being okay with rejection. You’ve never been rejected before, so you’re scared –”

“I am _not_ scared!”

“Meanwhile, I’ve been rejected enough times that it doesn’t scare me anymore. See, confidence.”

“What are you talking about?” Yuri scoffed. Doors opened for a pretty, confident girl in a way that they didn’t for a short, damaged, antisocial boy who liked other boys. “You’ve never been rejected, Mila.”

“Really? I kept trying to be friends with my one rinkmate for years but he pushed me away and called me a hag every time I tried,” she said with a smile.

Yuri sank deeper into the couch. “Fine, fine, I’m an asshole.”

“But you’re our asshole,” she said, pulling him into a side hug.

He stared at the TV, where pretty Hollywood actors made out while pretty, melancholy music played in the background.

“Hey.” Georgi put a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t help you with the Mila way of doing things, but sometimes I find confidence when my back’s against the wall. I’m willing to look stupid every once in a while if it’s worth it.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Sometimes, I regret the effort,” Georgi admitted. “But I never regret trying.”

 

During the fourteenth repeat of a song he’d been obsessed with for the last few days, Yuri jotted down “attempt cantilever during bridge” in his notebook. He stood up and moved his arms to the rhythm.

“What are you doing?” Lilia asked as she carried her tea set into the living room.

“Trying something new.” He held his pose and turned his head to look her in the eye. “I know what my fire is, Lilia.”

“Is that so?” She reclined in her armchair and took a sip of her tea.

“Fearlessness.”

“Did you get that from a movie?”

“No. I learned it when I failed,” he said. “When I lost Worlds, I was desperate for a new way to win. And I couldn’t think of anything – I couldn’t even explain ‘fire’ to you – and I realized: how could I create anything if I never took risks? And how could I take risks if I was so afraid to fail?” He picked up the notebook and waved it at her. “So this is my fire. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

She smiled. “You sound like me when I was 21.”

“Really?”

“Yes. My director hated me,” she said fondly.

 

“You are all the reason I have no hair,” Yakov grunted.

“We love you, Yakov, you’re the best coach!” Viktor threw his arms around him. “Sacrificing your hair because you support our growth as athletes and as people.”

“I did not support your foolish decision, I’m not supporting his,” Yakov said, pointing at Yuri and his leopard-print suitcase.

“Yet here you are at the airport. Again,” Georgi teased. “You softie.”

“It’s for Yurio’s spiritual growth!” Viktor glomped Yuri before he could run away. “I support your decision. Following my heart was the best thing I ever did.”

“God, do you have to make a big deal out of everything?” Yuri grunted as he wriggled his way out of Viktor’s hug. “It’s just a two-week vacation.”

“And just to learn breakdancing, right?” Mila said with a wink before she went in to hug him. “You two should join me in aerial yoga class next time.”

“I’d rather jump into the Malaya Neva in January.”

“Don’t do anything stupid, Yurochka,” Yakov warned. “If I hear about some river-jumping accident or pole-dancing scandal, I’ll put a tutu on your next costume.”

 

Yuri knew to wait outside the Almaty rink at 6:45 based on the times Otabek responded to text messages and one interview where he humble-bragged about always being the last person to leave the rink. Yuri wore sunglasses and kept his hood down to avoid being recognized, peering out every once in a while until he spotted that unmistakable haircut.

“Hey.” He pulled off his sunglasses as Otabek turned around.

“Yuri! What are you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood. Or something. Can you let me into the rink?”

“Yeah, of course,” he said, holding the door open for Yuri and following him in. “I wish you’d told me, I could have gotten the futon ready for you and asked my mom to cook my favorite…” he trailed off when he noticed Yuri’s thousand-yard stare. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Well, for now, anyway.” He threw aside his hoodie and sat down to put on his skates. “New short program. I wanted you to see it.”

“Look, I know I suck at social media, but you could have emailed me a video.”

Yuri briefly stopped lacing his skates to shoot him a look. “It’s important.”

He reached into his duffel bag and handed Otabek a CD with _“Bloodstream”_ written on it. Yuri now knew the experience of suffering for one’s art, having put himself through the soul-crushing humiliation of asking Georgi for the title of the song from the kissing scene of that stupid vampire show.

Yuri’s heart pounded in his ears as he drifted in small, idle circles at the center of the rink, waiting for Otabek to put the music on.

Solemn piano chords filled the space between them. He kept his eyes locked on Otabek until it was time to move.

As he skated, his arms moved with the violins, pulling and weaving as though music flowed from his fingertips. These were _his_ movements, and there was something terrifying and exhilarating about skating to his own direction for the first time. Each motion cut the puppet strings that had guided his skating for so long.

_“I need to feel your hand upon my face…”_

He arched into a spiral position. Free of the resentment and denial in his “The Less I Know the Better” choreography, this skate was naked yearning. And not just yearning for Otabek (though that was certainly part of it), but yearning to finally say it out loud.

Yearning to let people in.

Yearning to fall off the tightrope.

He laughed to himself. His step sequence was total shit. He made a mental note to pull a favor from Katsudon once he got back to St. Petersburg.

He didn’t even have to think about the quad toe loop before landing it perfectly. Allie might have had a point with the whole “think less, feel more” babble.

_“You’ve gotten into my bloodstream. I can feel you flowing in me…”_

After he spun into his ending pose, he forced himself past his nerves to meet Otabek’s gaze.

The warmth in those brown eyes radiated across the rink. The rare, proud smile spreading across Otabek’s face was totally worth skating out his feelings like a fucking drama queen.

“You did it,” Otabek said as Yuri glided towards him. “You had that look in your eyes, the one you said you couldn’t figure out before. You finally found it. What changed?”

“I met you.”

Otabek blinked.

“I mean, I want to jump off the nearest bridge right now for saying something that cheesy, but it’s the truth.” Yuri’s face burned as he fastened his skate guards on. “There was a lot I wanted to say at the airport, and I didn’t get to say it before you left.”

After taking a moment to parse the words, Otabek laughed. “So you decided to choreograph a program and fly to Almaty instead?”

“Beats talking about my feelings.”

Otabek stepped closer to trace Yuri’s cheek with his fingers. “Yuri, you could have sent a text saying ‘I like you’ and spelled the word ‘like’ wrong and I would have turned the plane around.” The smile that followed melted Yuri where he stood. “But that skate was fucking cool.”

Yuri grabbed the lapels of Otabek’s jacket and yanked him down for a kiss, holding on just long enough to find out what Otabek’s lips felt like.

“I’ve been thinking about that for a while,” Yuri admitted, keeping his forehead pressed against Otabek’s.

“Was it what you imagined?”

“Almost, but…”

Otabek tunneled his fingers through the back of Yuri’s hair and leaned down to give him the kind of kiss worthy of schmoopy vampire love songs. Yuri gripped Otabek’s shoulders when he felt his knees give way a little. He parted his lips further, heat spreading throughout him from where their tongues met. A second more and his heart would have caught fire.

“Okay, it was more like that,” Yuri breathed.

“Good.” Otabek smiled. “Now I’ve confessed my feelings.”

Yuri almost smiled back, but: “Wait. Why didn’t _you_ say anything?”

“Have you _met_ you? I had a 50-50 chance of getting kicked in the face.”

“Eh, fair.” Yuri shrugged. “That’s probably not going to change for a while, you know.”

“I know.”

“I really suck at the whole feelings thing.”

“I know.”

“And I’m kind of a pain in the ass.”

“I know,” Otabek said. “Georgi warned me the first time I met him.”

_“What.”_

 

Outside the rink, Yuri reached into his bag and tossed Otabek a helmet. “My turn to give you a lift,” he said.

“Yuri, I live two blocks from here.”

“Well, I already rented the Yamaha so get the fuck on because I’m taking you home.”

 

While Otabek set up the futon for him, Yuri thumbed through his Instagram feed: gratuitous Mila fitness selfies with an inordinate amount of likes, Chris’s hammy engagement photos in the Swiss meadows, and Katsudon still being a cheesy tourist all over St. Petersburg even after living there six months. Yuri froze upon seeing a candid photo of himself mid-skate: bent back in a cantilever, hair whipping around him, a hint of a smile peeking through. Cheerfully making a mess of the ice.

It was the first photo Otabek had posted in months.

_**otabek-altin** yeah he’s cool @yuri-plisetsky #welcometoalmaty #igottastepmygameup_

_**kolya-pls** you look so happy Yurochka :-) excited to see to your new program soon_

_**yuri-plisetsky** DEDUSHKA WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING OTABEK_

_**kolya-pls** i hope you have good time in Kazakhstan. please tell your friend to keep his shirt on_

 

“It’s done!”

Yuri landed on the couch with enough force to make Otabek’s comic book fly out of his hands. He set his phone down on the coffee table and pressed play.

“The piece Lilia commissioned,” he explained to a confused Otabek. “She just emailed it to me.”

It began with one violin, timid and controlled at first and then increasingly frenzied. A cello joined in, calm and steady, tempering the chaos of the violin until they fell into harmony.

Yuri tentatively rested his hand palm-up in the space between them on the couch. He relaxed once Otabek reached for it and entwined their fingers.

The piano and the rest of the string section blended in, followed by the rest of the orchestra coloring the music and bringing it to a crescendo. He closed his eyes, imagining the jump sequence. The next season was going to be a bitch with the way his body kept changing, but with this program, Yuri could picture his entire life in every movement. Once the world got to see it, he’d be unstoppable. And with each of his competitors taking things to new levels – Katsudon defending his championship, Viktor finding bliss in weird gay travel show aspirations, JJ clawing his way back up, and Otabek possibly being maybe a little bit in love – Yuri couldn’t wait.

With his free hand, Yuri picked up the phone and stared at it for a long while after the music stopped.

“Damn,” he said. “Lilia’s a good listener.”

“She’s a legend for a reason.” Otabek peered over Yuri’s shoulder to read the track title. “Did she really call it ‘The Toilets Need Scrubbing’?”

“No. Long story,” Yuri sighed.

“Do you have a title in mind?”

“I don’t know yet.” Yuri racked his brain, retracing the steps down memory lane where the music took him until his reverie was interrupted by the not-unwelcome sound of Otabek laughing to himself.

“What about ‘Yuri on Fire’?”

“Otabek, that’s the dumbest title I’ve ever heard.”

**FIN.**

**(SEE YOU NEXT LEVEL)**

**Author's Note:**

>  **Credit:** Title comes from the gorgeous film musical _La La Land_. Watching this video essay on [the anatomy of the obsessed artist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba-CB6wVuvQ) (contains spoilers for _Black Swan_ and _Whiplash_ ) also helped me shape the narrative and flesh out Yuri’s struggles as a performer.
> 
>  **Sequel, five years later:** [If I Ever Get the Nerve](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9872381)
> 
>  
> 
> [Also, come say hi on my shiny new tumblr!](http://fakeplasticsnow.tumblr.com/)


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